


To Ascribe Meaning

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Series: Requests/challenges/etc [19]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Angst, Gen, Holy Grail, Post Grail quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24283759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Three left to seek the Grail, but only two returned. Percival needs time to recover, time to heal, time to figure out what his life means now that the Grail is gone from this world.And so, he begins to pray.
Series: Requests/challenges/etc [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673452
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	To Ascribe Meaning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demeritus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demeritus/gifts).



Percival knelt, head bowed, though why he would bow it now was beyond him. After all, when he saw Angels – when he watch Galahad – _His Galahad!_ – taken body and soul into the very Heavens they had been promised all their lives, he had not bowed or hid his face, but watched openly as awe flooded him.

It was different now, he supposed, alone in this place whose name he knew he would forget before he returned home – if he could even call Camelot home now – the quietude of being so alone he was unsure even God could find him weighing him down.

And so, his awareness of the burden he would carry in his soul renewed, he bowed his head and began to speak aloud more than pray.

“I do not question My God's Will or Plan,” he closed his eyes because he feared if he kept staring at the stones that made up the floor any more intently they may begin to stare back, “and I wish I still had the strength to know that all things will be revealed in their time.”

He paused, ran his hands through his hair and nearly sank lower onto his knees, nearly rested the backs of his thighs on his heels before he caught himself and straightened his body, realigned his back with his knees and shoulders. There would be nothing Good, and certainly nothing Holy, by allowing himself to give into the exhaustion that had taken hold of him and refused to let go.

“I could never have done it, you know,” he continued, hands clasped in front of him and held to his chest, “It could never have been me who was the most Holy, most Pure.”

He flinched as if it could help him avoid the wave of shame he knew was about to crash over him, and then straightened himself again, determined not to let his fear of himself and his own shortcomings turn him into even less of a Knight, even less of a man, than he already felt he had been reduced to.

“But why did You need to take him?” He knew he was demanding things of the Almighty, even if those things were answers, yet still he pressed on, “He was everything You asked for, everything You asked him to be? Could he not have had a life here, too, even for a little while? Could he not have lived as Your only Son had, among us, teaching us Your ways? His entire existence was a Gift to us, to Camelot, and yet his value could not be fully explored, could not be fully understood in the impossibly short time he was with us!”

A sob escaped him, forcing its way from the deepest, darkest parts of his soul he had never before known he could access and scraping every part of him as it traveled through his body. By the time it finally made a sound, it seemed too quiet, too undersold despite how it echoed around him.

He tried to take in a deep breath to center himself, but only managed a quick, sharp intake of air that seemed to stab the back of his throat before making its way into his lungs. He tried again, pulled deeper from his lungs this time, only to have the same results. He tried a third time, then a forth and a fifth and a sixth and then lost count, each breath coming closer and closer together, filling less and less of his lungs.

He was lower on his knees, now, heels of his riding boots biting into the backs of his thighs, face in his hands. Someone was sobbing, and had he had any presence of mind left he would have realized it was him, a long-time-coming lament for everything and everyone he had lost – not just on the Quest, but throughout his life – taking place of his inquiries to God.

It was for Galahad, yes, but too for his mother and his sister, for the father he had never met, for the father he had found in Bors now several weeks' journey ahead of him. It was for his brothers-in-arms fallen on enemy swords while he had been spared.

His shoulders hunched forward and his near-full weight rested on his calves. His whole frame shook as if battered by a storm. And perhaps he was, from within rather than without.

He mourned for Camelot, for the fractures in the Round Table that he only noticed in rare times he had to reflect on the life he may have left behind for good.

_What was it,_ a distant part of him wandered, _that made things wrong easier to spot when you were away from the situation._

He emptied his mind and then began to empty his soul – every moment of anguish he had ever ignored, every desire he had ever shoved into a mental lockbox such that he could try once more for the Grail, strive once more to do right by Camelot and the Fisher King and perhaps even himself finding its way to the surface before being wiped clean.

He was still on his knees, but his forearms, too, were now braced against the floor, hands curled over the top of his head as he buried his face in the rough cloth of his tunic sleeves. He wondered, once the emptiness began to fill him and his awareness alike, if this was the process of having his soul stripped from him before being cast into Hell for daring to question God.

“This is not death,” the voice was so close, so suddenly near that he jerked his head upward only to be blinded by the whitest light he had only seen once before.

He had been quick to duck his head again – too quick to register anything beyond the light, too blinded to realize he needed to look closer to see if anyone was there beyond the initial shock.

“Percival,” the voice was closer now, more familiar, too familiar, too impossible. 

“No,” Percival felt the word grate against his throat as if it had barbs.

“Percival,” and this time there was no denying who that voice belonged to, for even though the small handful of weeks that had passed since the trio was sundered by the Will of God himself felt like it happened in a life that belonged to someone else entirely, that voice was etched into the very core of Percival's being.

“Galahad,” he said more to the ground than anything else, “Galahad,” he said the name again, firmer this time, “I watched them take you away, watched you ascend into Heaven to be with our God and His Angels. Why are you here?”

There was silence – one beat, two beats, the rapid thudding of Percival's heart keeping an unfair measure of time while he waited to see if there would be a response, waited for confirmation that he had not lost his mind, had not, in fact, been struck from the mortal plane of existence for his heresy.

“I heard your prayers,” Galahad finally said something, “I felt your pain.”

Percival looked up, slowly this time, eyes closed so tightly in an effort to not be blinded a third time in his so-short life. 

He felt his body return to the proper position for prayer without his mind's input, each muscle protesting the rigidity and screaming at him for trying to seek a convention taught rather than found on his own, trying to return to a normal that no longer fit him, would never fit him again.

His eyes opened, eventually, the light still blinding at first but he managed to summon the fortitude to wait it out rather than try to hide again. 

Beyond the light was Galahad himself, still whole, still human as far as Percival could tell, only...more. Better. Enrobed in the same tattered clothes that had covered him through the most grueling parts of their shared Quest but also in the Light that Heaven held.

Galahad was human and Angel all at once, very much there and very much crouching in front of Percival, a worried expression on his otherwise smooth features.

“They took away your scars,” was the first thing Percival said.

“Did they?” Galahad put a hand to his face, “Huh.”

Percival wondered what he must look like, unwashed for days and unfed for near a full day now, a penance he could no describe now casting him into even sharper contrast to this man who he had once shared a destiny with.

In the end, it seemed Heaven only had room for one of them, and Galahad was the natural choice, the better fit.

“How did you find me?” Percival had no idea how long it had been since either of them had shattered the near-oppressive silence he had initially came here to seek.

Galahad raised an eyebrow and Percival winced, face turned with one cheek to his shoulder, one to Galahad as if to half the blow he felt despite the lack of any physical movement outside of himself.

“You hurt.”

It sounded so simple as Galahad said it, and yet Percival felt the two syllable observation seep into every level of his being, make its way into his core and tell him that yes, Galahad was right, he hurt in ways he would never find words for, never even find feelings for beyond _knowing_ the hurt was there, was a part of him, a part of who he had become and a part of who he would one day leave behind in the form of stories other people chose to tell.

Percival turned his face slowly, as if he may flinch away again and try to hide his face as if that did him any favors.

“You were taken from,” Percival tried to pause but felt himself take gulping breaths of air that quickly devolved into short, gasping breaths instead.

Galahad inched closer, an awkward shuffling thing from the crouch he was in, studying Percival closely as the Grail Knight Hopeful battled with his own lungs, his own head.

“From you,” Galahad realized as he said it aloud.

And, God forgive him, for he would never have been so selfish in front of another were he not so weak with temptation so close, prompting him.

Percival nodded.

“I am so, so sorry,” Galahad reached out and put a palm on Percival's cheek.

There was no burning from the Heavenly light that marked his soul as damned, no flinching that had marred his ability to engage in this Miracle of a visit so far.

“It's not your fault,” Percival seemed to be swallowing his words as he said them, “It's not your fault that you fulfilled your destiny.”

Galahad did not removed his hand from Percival's cheek, did not try to argue with Percival's assessment. Instead, he simply said: “That doesn't mean I'm not sorry.”

“There's nothing for me, now,” Percival told him, “I've failed twice. I cannot save the Fisher King or restore the Wasted Lands to their rightful state.”

“There is nothing in this world for anyone,” Galahad told him, “Only what we make ourselves.”

Percival opened and closed his mouth a few times, the words to remind Galahad that he had not only found the Grail itself here on Earth but had lived here, been born here, learned to fight alongside men and mages alike on this Earth. He tried to give life to the string of sounds required to tell Galahad he was wrong, to tell Galahad that he had to be wrong, that this world had so, so much to offer beyond _things_ and temptations and the inherent faults of men born of their knowing their own mortality far, far before their time on Earth expired.

Galahad seemed to sense this, seemed to be able to _know_ the very core of Percival's being and _understand _.__

__“Your Hope and Love for your compatriots is a Gift of its own,” Galahad's voice was a kind thing that shattered the last of Percival's walls that held back his fears surrounding his failures, “and your Faith in their ability to create meaning without greed or selfishness is something even the Angels could learn from.”_ _

__Percival closed his eyes again and let himself collapse this time, Galahad's hand slipping off his cheek as he did so._ _

__–_ _

__When he became aware of his own consciousness, he was alone again, the chapel dark and the night blanketing the outside._ _

__–_ _

__He was welcomed back to Camelot with the usual fanfare of someone returning from a Quest, but there was a panicked undercurrent to it, a disbelief he had survived on his own for so long, an unasked question on if he had, like Bors, truly seen the Grail and lived to tell the tale._ _

__He wanted to scream, to tell the whole damned court within and without the Round Table that he had seen the Grail _twice_ in his short life and neither time had amounted to adding anything to his legacy. He wanted so badly to tell his King that the return Feast was unwanted._ _

__Instead, he kept his head down, nodded and managed the right words at the right time when someone else spoke to him, an seemingly endless parade of people – most he had never seen before – asking him questions and saying things he knew they only said because they wanted to try to lower his guard._ _

__When the feast hall was empty save himself, Bors finally came to him._ _

__“You're back,” was all Bors said at first. Still, there was a reverence in those two syllables Percival did not feel worthy of._ _

__“How long have you been back at Court?” Percival felt that was the correct way to respond._ _

__“Near three months,” Bors said with a heavy exhale that may have been a sigh, may have been a mental purge, “What happened?”_ _

__“I spent some time at the chapel,” Percival would not lie to Bors, but did not want to tell him everything, did not want to know if Bors would think him truthful or mad or both._ _

__“Something changed you,” Bors' kept his voice low despite the emptiness of the hall, “Something beyond the Grail, beyond...beyond what happened.”_ _

__Percival, despite the technique having not worked the last time he needed it to work, took a deep breath to center himself. It came in shaky measures but still managed to be a single, unbroken inhalation. He exhaled and all the words came out, every detail of his encounter of Galahad, every fear of not being truly enough for God and Heaven and Galahad alike, how much he tried not to fall in love with someone he knew could never love him. He confessed all this and more to Bors as if Bors could absolve him of the human condition._ _

__Bors wept alongside Percival, the two of them in the feast hall so late even the servants had gone to bed, things that were not sins yet still managed to make them so aware of the flaws in their hearts and minds and souls tumbling out like broken things, discarded without thought to where they landed._ _

__“I tried,” Bors told Percival, “I tried everything I knew how to keep your both safe while still doing whatever it was God had in mind for you but in the end I am only human.”_ _

__“You are more than human,” Percival managed to draw from what little peace he had been able to construct from the Miracle that had been Galahad's visit, “You were our shelter from the worst of what the Quest had to offer, a living sacrifice for something so much greater than himself, so humble and gentle and patient when you could have had all the Glory of the Grail to yourself had you undertaken the Quest alone.”_ _

__Bors hugged Percival, something so raw and so urgent Percival returned the gesture without a thought to it._ _

__“You both were worth more than Glory could have given me,” Bors told him, “Did you find what you were looking for, at the chapel?”_ _

__“No,” Percival admitted, “but I do not think I knew what I was looking for, really, beyond trying to outrun the thoughts in my own head.”_ _

__Bors made a noise that could have had any meaning prescribed to it and the meaning would have not been wrong._ _

__“I fear,” Bors said as he released Percival, “that the way I failed you two will transfer to my own son.”_ _

__“To your...” Percival trailed off, eyes wide and mouth hanging open._ _

__“I found out two weeks ago,” Bors told him, “She's excited but I am terrified.”_ _

__“If you love and protect him even a fraction of what you gave us, he will be the most loved and well-protected son Camelot has ever seen,” Percival tried to assure him but feared his words would not mean much given Camelot's track record for what became of her sons. As such, he quickly added, “I know you will raise a son worthy of everything.”_ _

__Bors put one hand on Percival's shoulder and squeezed, not letting go._ _

__“Come,” Bors told him, “I have room at my house for you.”_ _

__Percival hesitated, caught between not wanting to turn down Bors' offer of hospitality and not wanting to intrude on his home life, on his marriage._ _

__“She will want to meet you,” Bors told him, “Please?”_ _

__And, God's strength allowing him to shove his Pride aside and allow what he truly needed to heal into his life, Percival nodded._ _


End file.
